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Saturday

I wasn't in the best of moods when I woke up on Saturday morning after roughly four hours sleep – thanks to the girls from the tent across the way who wouldn't shut up with their terrible Spice Girls tribute act.

Anyway, I soon found the (relative) luxury of the VIP bar and sat for a while looking out for anyone remotely famous, but soon realised they were all in the Artists' Bar instead - which was the other side of a really big fence that I wasn't allowed through. Damn.

After soaking it all up for a while, I headed of to see The Cribs on the second stage. Normally, I'd try to give some sort of comment on individual songs here, but I can’t, since the entire set list sounded like one mess of shouting and mediocre songs – not that I could tell when one ended and the next one began.

They finished off with roughly five minutes of messing round with feedback from the amps and a rubbish attempt at trashing the stage, which sounded awful and gave me a headache... but was slightly more interesting than the previous 25 minutes of 'songs'. But playing with feedback and knocking over a few cymbals doesn't make you a rockstar. Sometimes it takes talent too.

Never mind. Next was Mark Ronson and his rather-large following of musical mates. I was a bit disappointed that they began with a cover of Coldplay's God Put A Smile Upon Your Face. Mark refused to appear for a while though, so perhaps he's as bored by Coldplay as I am.

It was still the most interesting version of the song that I've ever heard, but then I've never heard it played with a backing of bongos before now. But the day was definitely getting better as it went on, as Mark proceeded through covers of everything from Britney to the Zutons, and a particularly lovely version of Hurt by Radiohead, with Alex from Phantom Planet dropping by to do vocals and making a pretty good job of it.

I left the second stage for a while to head to the Signing Tent so that I could get Manic Street Preachers to sign my fuzzy cat ears, meaning that meant I missed the Guillemots' set. However, I was told by a fairly reliable source that they were "a bit rubbish", so I wasn't that bothered.

Next was Lily Allen, accompanied by a cup of a certain German herbal liqueur. She looked somewhat like she'd been celebrating being banned from America a little too hard, and over-ran her allotted time because she decided to include an unscheduled discourse on her thoughts about George Bush, "heroine-addict models" and Grazia magazine.

The lyrics to her songs are highly amusing, and the tunes were as catchy as ever, but I can't say I was too happy with her disregarding the fact that her over-running caused the Manics' set to be delayed and cut shorter, as I thought it disrespectful to their fans.

But eventually they appeared - Manic Street Preachers; my very favourite-est of bands. So I may be somewhat biased when I say how much they rocked my socks off. However, the fact that I could barely hear certain bits (despite being stood on the front row next to the speaker stack), because the crowd were singing along so enthusiastically, implies that some other people thought they were quite good too.

It was absolutely tipping it down with rain, but bassist Nicky Wire was there in "the shortest mini-skirt he's ever worn", and the mix of songs covered almost the entire Manics history - including songs as old as Motown Junk, through to Everything Must Go and Design For Life from their later 90s 'popular period' and a few tracks from the new album, Send Away The Tigers. The only disappointment was there were no tracks from 1994's The Holy Bible. But yeah, overall, I liked it.

I was gutted to have missed Iggy And The Stooges (who were playing at the same time), but the Manics take precedence over everyone else I'm afraid. After their set finished, I met up with my mum for some noodles, because I have no interest whatsoever in what The Killers were pumping out of the speakers at the main stage. So I had time to waste before the next act I wanted to see, and I hadn't eaten for 12 hours.

My Saturday night finished with Graham Coxon, who was headlining the fourth stage. The ex-blur guitarist's set included furious playing on Freakin' Out and Spectacular and even the comparatively slow and steady Don't Believe Anything I Say was roughly eight times more rock 'n' roll than Blur could ever be. Much more interesting than going to see The Killers anyway.

Sunday began with me feeling very sleepy. However, it didn't really matter as the most interesting opening act on a total of seven stages was Just Jack, so I wasn't in any hurry to get to the front for anything. Instead, my friend and I packed up the tent and took it to the car so that it would save time later, and when I got to the main arena I just headed for the nearest thing that would shelter me from the rain.

Fortunately, that happened to be the fifth stage, featuring Alberta Cross. To my delight, this wasn't some rubbish female singer-songwriter that I'd never heard of, but a group of four hairy men that I'd never heard of.

Their front-man had one of those tortured-but-not-annoying types of voices that can do both the high and low bits, as well as lots of clever squiggly bits in between. And the rest of the band was pretty good too. There are tinges of Neil Young in there, but the songs are more hummable and quite a bit louder.

After that I thought I'd brave the rain again to go to see Juliette and the Licks on the second stage. Not because I thought I'd enjoy it, but to settle a debate I've had with several people over the past few years over whether or not Ms Lewis should have just stuck to acting and left the world of music to the professionals.

As the people who I've argued over this with often say "but you have to see them live to understand", I thought I would, so that in future I know that I'm right. Which I am. In fact, I was delighted that they were 15 minutes late due to rain-related technical issues, so that I didn't have to listen to any more of her than necessary.

I would put it nicely, but I can't be bothered. Basically, she seemed to be singing flat for the majority of it and the song-writing was rubbish. The rest of The Licks seem to be talented musicians, but that really wasn't enough to keep me there.

The combination of make-you-dance-like-a-fool rhythms and frontman Tom Smith's intimidating voice was so captivating it even made me forget just how cold and wet I was.

However, what I did hear was ok. The overall impression I get is that Martha is an extremely talented song-writer, but maybe not everyone's cup of tea in regards to her voice. Some bits of her vocals sounded beautiful, while others sounded a bit like she was recovering from that type of cold that makes your throat feel like sandpaper. But lots of people seem to like that, so I guess it just depends on how you like your singers.

Following that, I had to get myself to the very VIP area, the bit with the Artists' Bar and the dressing rooms, to do my interview with Ed, the drummer of Editors. He was lovely.

Unfortunately, there were lots of people and lots of mud preventing me from getting to see the majority of Jet's show on the second stage. The little I did see was just as good as I had expected, but by the time I had found a vacant patch of mud to stand in, they were already breaking into Rollover DJ.

I was gutted to have missed all but two songs, but what I did see was pretty amazing. Even more amazing though is how anyone can manage such ferocious windmill strumming in such tight jeans. To be perfectly honest, I don't even know how anyone can breathe in trousers like that, let alone do anything else.

But actually, despite how much her bad-girl-bubblegum image confuses me, I was quite impressed by how good her voice was live and she has a really solid live band to back her up.

Next on the main stage were Snow Patrol, proving just how lovely their songs are. I'd do a proper review of their live show but, to be honest, I might as well just do an album review instead, as what they play live seems to be exactly the same. With most bands, they either turn a bit rubbish when they're taken away from the recording studio and expert producers, or the really turn it up and give the audience some incredible (feels-like-it's-a) once in a lifetime experience.

But Snow Patrol sound almost exactly like they do on CD, and this was how I felt about them when I saw them at V 2004. True, they're great at what they do, but I really couldn't be bothered to stand in the mud to watch them when I reckon I'd get a fairly similar experience from watching them on TV. Maybe it was a different experience down on the front row, but I was more interested in seeing Jarvis Cocker on the third stage.

Sometimes, what sets apart an act is experience in how to put on an amazing show for even the coldest, wettest and muddiest of audiences. The fact that he looks like he hasn't eaten since the glory days of Pulp would imply that he'd be running a bit low on energy, but Jarvis is still climbing lighting rigs with the best of 'em.

Who would have thought that a weedy bloke in glasses and tweed could look so cool or have so much power over a bunch of strangers? Standing up on the monitor, he looked somewhat like a preacher on a pulpit before a devoted congregation, only much better at crafting high-quality melodic pop-rock. Yes, he's slightly insane, but he's still one of the best performers out there.

I then had to cross over to the fourth stage though to catch Boy Kill Boy. Right from their opener Back Again, they caused silly dancing among an entire tent-full of indie-kids. I've seen this band before, but it was a while ago and they now seem a lot tighter and more experienced in the art of putting on a good show. What hasn't changed is that Suzie and Civil Sin are still great songs.

Cheer Up, Boys, taken from their new album, sounded great and sounded completely different to anything they've done previously, but I don't think anything can beat the experience of watching tens of thousands of people all singing along to a classic like Learn To Fly.

But now I am very tired, so I shall go home as I have a lot of camping-related exhaustion to sleep off. But hopefully I should be recovered by next year.